Justice Antonin Scalia Wears Saint Thomas More's Hat to Inauguration

From Fr. Zuhlsdorf at WDTPRS:

Kevin Walsh of the University of Richmond School of Law writes:

The twitterverse is alive with tweets about Justice Scalia’s headgear for today’s inauguration. At the risk of putting all the fun speculation to an end . . . The hat is a custom-made replica of the hat depicted in Holbein’s famous portrait of St. Thomas More. It was a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia. We presented it to him in November 2010 as a memento of his participation in our 27th annual Red Mass and dinner.

Wearing the cap of a statesman who defended liberty of church and integrity of Christian conscience to the inauguration of a president whose policies have imperiled both: Make of it what you will.

Link:

• Closely related to the biretta…

Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky orders priests to read anti-Obama letter at Sunday sermons

Manya A. Brachear | Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Joining the chorus of Roman Catholic clergy in Illinois criticizing President Barack Obama before next week's election, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky ordered priests to read a letter to parishioners on Sunday before the presidential election, explaining that politicians who support abortion rights also reject Jesus.

"By virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass," Jenky wrote in a letter circulated to clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria.

In the letter, Jenky cautions parishioners that Obama and a majority of U.S. senators will not reconsider the mandate that would require employers, including religious groups, to provide free birth control coverage in their health care plans. "This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system," Jenky wrote.

"Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord," Jenky added. "They are objectively guilty of grave sin."

Earlier this year, Jenky delivered a controversial homily criticizing the contraception mandate. The bishop included Obama's policies in a list of historic challenges the Catholic Church has overcome in previous centuries, including Hitler and Stalin's campaigns.

Jenky is the third Illinois Catholic leader to offer pointed guidance for Catholic voters in recent weeks. Last month, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki offered a commentary on the Democratic and Republican parties' platforms that he said wasn't intended as instruction, but guidance.

"There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils," Paprocki explained in the Springfield Diocese newspaper.

"Again, I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against," he said. "But I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy."

Furthermore, in the Rockford Diocese, Vicar General Eric Barr compared Obama's support of religious freedom in Muslim countries to his lack of support for Catholic liberty.

"Meanwhile, Obamacare marches on, steamrolling Catholic morality and the First Amendment under its weight. How can that be tolerated by citizens?" Barr wrote.

"Nothing justifies this peculiar and unreal stance of the president," he said.

Spokeswoman Colleen Dolan said she doesn't expect Chicago's Cardinal Francis George to issue any statements before the election.

Link:

• Bishop orders priests to read anti-Obama letter at Sunday sermons

Michael Voris: Let the Persecution Begin

By Michael Voris

(ChurchMilitant.TV) Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

Everything wrong with the Church throughout the world today is summed up in the fiasco that was the Al Smith dinner in New York last night - the event where public enemy number one of Christ and His Holy Roman Catholic Church got to use and abuse the bride of Christ all under the watchful and supporting eye of a prince of the Church.

In the remaining couple of days before the lead up, some intrepid researchers did a little investigating - only to discover that a number of muckety-mucks who comprise the board of directors of the Al Smith foundation which sponsors the dinner are big-time Obama worshipers.

For example, exceedingly wealthy real estate developer John Zuccotti, who helped the hapless anti-Church Catholic Joe Biden when he ran for president a few years back.

John Zuccotti has all the admiration of the money people in NYC. He mingles with the in crowd.

Then there is Robert Wright who was the grand pooba of the television network NBC for nearly 20 years right up until five years ago. That’s quite an impressive resume, that one job alone.

Next is Peter Kiernan III, a former Goldman-Sachs moneyman and investment banker who has piloted many many projects that have assets into the billions.

And of course, we can’t leave out Al Smith IV, the chairman of the Foundation.

Federal Election Commission records he has showered donations on every pro-abortion democrat New York has offered up: Charles Schumer, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, even the notorious Congressman Jerry Nadler who has never missed chance to support the executions of pre-born babies in every congressional vote that has come up.

All these guys bankrolled by Al Smith IV. You wonder what his great grandfather who the event is named after would think of him.

But see, Catholic associations cozying up to and hopping in bed with rich or influential people is nothing new in America. We see it in the Knights of Columbus who refuse to expel from their midst pro-abortion and pro same-sex marriage Catholic politicians from their midst... hiding behind the canard that the bishops don’t do anything about them.. so the KofC doesn’t have the right.

Total garbage that by the way.

And of course... there is Notre Dame and the filthy rich board of trustees there... a large number of whom are big-time Chicago democratic machine operatives who are of course all in the tank for Obama and his child-murdering policies. They were the ones who orchestrated the entire May 2009 insult to the Mother of God by bringing Obama to campus to not just speak, but drape him in honors, complete with the seal of the university of the Mother of God.

But when you turn to the situation of the Al Smith dinner, you are especially revolted.

This is nothing more than a sellout of the faith presided over by a Cardinal of the Church, Timothy Dolan, who is touted as some kind of conservative wonderman.

He has cooperated in this insult to the faith with these moneychangers... who are big time Obama cheerleaders. His Eminence has openly declared in an Wall Street Journal article that he and other bishops failed miserably to teach the faith and defend the Church in the area of sexual morality.

He and other bishops are constantly droning on about the need to re-establish a Catholic identity. You don’t establish a Catholic identity by selling out the faith for your own personal popularity and to hob nob with a bunch of wall street moguls who spend their efforts and money to ensure that enemies of the faith keep getting elected.

Cardinal Dolan is a priest who has a duty to catechize and teach these men and others like them the faith that they either never got taught properly and or simply rejected... whichever the case.

If they won’t listen, then he needs to shake the dust from his feet... the words of the Master... not mine. But he has not only not done that, he has acquiesced to their bringing in Obama and refused the pleas of tens of thousands of faithful Catholics to rescind the invitation.

He has ignored the sheep and opened the front door for the wolf... complete red carpet and all. And here is why we say... this Al Smith Dinner is a microcosm of all that is wrong in the Church.

The faithful are ignored... the wicked are elevated and mingled with and supported... and the leaders are the most culpable of all. Since the Church is quite obviously in dire need of cleansing... and since those who are charged with keeping Her pure will not do the job... then Our Lord Himself will have to sweep them aside and do it Himself.

Often when the Church has been in need of purification... Our Lord has permitted persecution to ensue. Can anyone look around at the Church today and say she is not in need of massive purification.

Bring it on. We should be happy to be victims for the Faith. Let the persecution begin!

GOD Love you,

I’m Michael Voris

Link:

• Let the Persecution Begin 10-19

Related:

• Update: The Al Smith Dinner is upon us: A solution!
• The Cardinal's Criteria Fall into Question  
• Bishop Rene Gracida: Michael Voris Pierces the Veil Surrounding the Invitation of Obama to the Al Smith Dinner 
• HSH fisks Cardinal Dolan’s invite of Obama to the Al Smith Dinner 
• Al Smith Dinner Willing To Accept Pro-Abortion Group 
• Catholics for Obama: "President Obama to be honored guest at Al Smith Dinner"
• Purpose Of Al Smith Dinner Is Flawed
• Oh, Puhleeeze! - Michael Voris 
• Nancy Pelosi denied photo-op by Pope Benedict XVI
• Sign the Petition
• AONY Blog Response
• Disinvite Obama
• Clear as MUD! (Obama Invited to Alfred Smith Dinner by Archdiocese of New York)

First non-Catholic business sues HHS over contraceptive mandate

By Andrew Evans

(The Washington Free Beacon) An arts and crafts business with more than 500 stores across the country launched a lawsuit against the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) implementation of Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate Wednesday, the Becket Fund announced.

Hobby Lobby is the first non-Catholic business to file a lawsuit objecting to the mandated coverage of certain contraceptive drugs that it considers abortion inducing.

Hobby Lobby “should never be put in a position of choosing their faith over their business,” Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund, said this morning in a conference call with the press.

“We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate,” said David Green, CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby will have to comply with the mandate or face fines totaling over a million dollars.

Green emphasized to reporters that his family’s Christian faith is important to his business.

Duncan pointed out that the business closes on Sunday and provides spiritual counsel to its employees.

The government under Obamacare requires employers to provide their employees health insurance that covers contraceptive drugs, including morning-after and week-after pills that some consider abortion inducing.

Hobby Lobby is not the first non-Catholic institution to file suit over the mandate. Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Illinois, sued in July. The federal court subsequently dismissed Wheaton’s suit because the Justice Department expanded the “safe harbor” accommodation that gives nonprofit institutions longer to comply with the regulation. That rendered the suit premature.

Hobby Lobby, however, is the first non-Catholic business to file suit against the mandate. Duncan pointed out that the only other business to file suit received an injunction.

Duncan said that the Justice Department has not issued any comparable accommodation for for-profit businesses. What’s more, Hobby Lobby is self-insured, so the so-called “accommodation” for nonprofits that requires the insurers to cover the objectionable drugs would not provide relief to the business.

The Becket Fund, which represents Hobby Lobby, describes itself as “a non-profit, public-interest legal and educational institute that protects the free expression of all faiths.”

Link:

• First non-Catholic business sues HHS over contraceptive mandate

SNAP: Support for Abuse Victims or Anti-Catholic Politicking?

Barbara Blaine, David Clohessy, and Fr. Thomas Doyle, O.P.

Conference speakers indicate a larger political agenda.

By David F. Pierre, Jr. 

Anyone who has watched the Catholic Church abuse narrative unfold in the media over the past several years has likely encountered SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a body which bills itself as the “largest, oldest, and most active support group” for clergy abuse victims. The organization has been quite successful in building its presence and influence in the media, as journalists and writers often turn to the group when seeking a voice critical of the Church for its handling of abuse cases.

Barbara Blaine, a woman who claims to have been abused by a priest as a teenager, founded SNAP in 1988. The group convened its first meeting in 1991, and David Clohessy, a Missouri man who has also claimed abuse by a priest, joined the group in a leadership role a year later. Prior to joining SNAP, Clohessy worked for nearly a decade for the now-disgraced, radical activist group ACORN.

However, while SNAP’s stated mission is “to provide support for men and women who have been sexually victimized by members of the clergy,” the group’s leadership has allied itself with a progressive social agenda and a full-scale assault on the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

The real agenda at play?

This past March in Washington, DC, SNAP President Blaine appeared as a featured guest at a high-voltage conference called “Women Money Power,” hosted by Feminist Majority, a very influential pro-abortion lobbying group. At the conference Blaine was joined noted activists Eleanor Smeal, Sandra Fluke, and Dawn Laguens (a vice president at Planned Parenthood) for a panel discussion titled “Bishops, Politicians, and the War on Women’s Health.”

The panelists took turns railing against Catholic leaders for their positions on “reproductive freedom” (read: contraception and abortion) and their opposition to the Obama administration’s healthcare mandate. Needless to say, the venom in the room against the Catholic Church was palpable.

Most notably, Blaine sat right next to Rev. Barry Lynn, the well-traveled president of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State whose progressive views have made him a fixture on cable television talk shows.

Blaine must have really appreciated Rev. Lynn’s talk (which can be viewed on YouTube), because just a few months later he appeared as a headline speaker at SNAP’s annual conference in Chicago. On that occasion, the energetic Lynn—a minister in the United Church of Christ—simply built upon his Church-bashing speech from the Feminist Majority conference, claiming that Catholic bishops have “no moral authority” to speak on women’s issues and human sexuality and asserting that the Church’s opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraception mandate was a “total fraud” and an “unimaginable distortion of the very idea of freedom.” According to Lynn, the Church’s objections to the HHS mandate were not really about religious liberty, but about being given “special treatment” and the “power” to impose their religious doctrine on others.

What did any of this have to do with the topic of clergy sex abuse? Why did Blaine choose Lynn to speak at her conference? They are good questions. Lynn made a brave attempt to tie the subject of clergy abuse to his talk, but ultimately the issue served as little more than a vehicle for a larger assault on the Catholic Church and advocacy for left-leaning social policies.

Child abuse is “allowed” in the Catholic Church?

Another speaker at SNAP’s Chicago conference was author Judy Braun (she has also published under the names “Judy Brown” and “Eishes Chayil,” which means “woman of valor”). In a wild presentation titled “Monotheism and Child Sacrifice,” Braun argued that Jewish communities and the Catholic Church view the sexual abuse of children as an acceptable form of child sacrifice, with roots in the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac... (continued)

Read More at The Catholic World Report

Link:

• SNAP: Support for Abuse Victims or Anti-Catholic Politicking? 

Catholic Voter Quandary - The Vortex With Michael Voris

By Michael Voris

Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

A big question has erupted lately around the question of how should Catholics vote. The choice for faithful Catholics isn’t between Obama and Romney. The idea of voting for Obama is simply off the table.

No the choice is between voting for Romney or not. Under the “or not” category that could mean either just not voting for president at all, voting for a 3rd party guy or writing someone in.

Now immediately – the knee jerk and valid response on the part of many is – what do you mean; not voting at all IS a vote for Obama because your vote isn’t able to be used to cancel out a vote FOR him.

And that is absolutely true and valid. As a matter of fact, in every presidential race I have voted with the exception of Ronald Reagan, I have for voted for the guy I did so that I could vote AGAINST the other guy.

This strategy is often referred to as “choosing the lesser of two evils”. And it is a very logical short term strategy. In the case before us in this current election .. we have a man who is enemy of life, morality, and truth. It is unthinkable that may Catholic could cats a vote for Obama.

So the thinking goes – then we have to hold our nose and vote for Romney .. not because he’s Romney, but because he’s NOT Obama.

Let’s look at this a little more deeply. Faithful Catholics don’t want Obama because he is a conduit for evil – no doubt about it.

But think of this .. if/when a faithful Catholic goes into the voting booth and pulls a lever for Romney – he is pulling the lever for a man who supports same-sex civil unions and has stated that he thinks such couples should be able to adopt. In short, the dilemma is a guy who supports a heck of a lot of evil, or a guy who supports a little less evil. Man, that’s our choice.

And here’s the root of the problem. Faithful Catholics and other political conservatives have been used and abused by the Republican Party establishment for decades. In five of the last 8 presidential elections, a republican has won. Abortion on demand is still the law of the land and America has continued her downward moral spiral, granted at varying speeds depending on which party is in control.

But that’s just the point – it boils down to a question of just how fast we are rocketing to hell. Warp speed if the democrats are in charge, cruise control if the Republicans are.

BUT THERE IS NEVER A REVERSAL OF COURSE.

At some point, Catholics and other like minded moral people, who believe that the number one issue with  America is not the economy but moral rot, have got to get out of this box of vote for the bad guy OR the REALLY bad guy.

Moral conservatives have been neglected and thrown crumbs from the table paid lip service for decades by the GOP establishment EXACTLY like African American voters have been abused and thrown crumbs from the table and paid lip service by the Democratic establishment for those same decades.

Million of children are still being aborted and the much of African American community is still mired in crushing poverty. How many elections does it take to realize that the establishment of both parties are conning their base for votes. Just as the primary season began heating up .. leading republicans were putting the word out that all the moral values talk should stop – that we needed to concentrate on the economy and nothing else. They got quote the backlash for that.

The talk quickly died away, but it was revealing. It revealed where the heart and mind of party leadership is. And it ain’t with the moral agenda.

Now .. granted .. there’s nothing at this late stage .. less than 90 days before the election that can happen to change the way this whole sorry game of money and influence and back-scratching is played .. not right now that is.

But there will be another election .. presumably and it is in the run up to the next one that serious moral conservatives .. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, have to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are really gonna keep supporting the party that takes us to hell at a slower pace.

Moral conservatives get treated this way because the party leadership knows at the end of the day .. most, practically all will choose the “lesser of two evils” option and therefore, the party establishment never has to give an account because they never have to suffer any consequences.

Now there are good moral conservatives within the party, both parties as well as some fringe parties. Polls continue to show that around 40 percent of Americans identify themselves as conservatives. That probably varies on a range depending on what issue comes up specifically.

But nonetheless, these numbers are not small. Imagine what would happen if all the moral conservatives from both the republican and democratic parties .. not just supporters, but leaders as well, elected office holders, movers and shakers, the influence leaders who are sick of the status quo, but have resigned themselves to it, imagine if immediately after this election .. in preparation for the next .. said, “that’s it. Nothing ever really changes. A new party is needed where men and women from within the current party establishments leave the old game and start an entirely new one? What would be the possibilities?

Right now the system is set up within each party to simply hold on to power. What is done with that power – the moral good – is held hostage to the desire for power at almost any cost just for its own sake.

This would require a bold move .. motivated by conscience and a desire to see the moral good prevail .. on the part of current leaders. The rank and file joe average voter doesn’t have the ability to pull this off. But leaders within the parties do. What’s to prevent them from getting on the phone with each other and talking about this idea. It’s the country and culture that’s at stake after all – their political careers are of no consequence.

If they try and lose, so what? They would have gone down in a blaze of glory fighting for the good, the true and the beautiful. But one thing is clear and it is this – moral conservatives, Catholics and others simply cannot be content to keep going into the booth and voting for FEWER intrinsic evils and expect that anything is gonna besides the SPEED with which we are morally decomposing.

Its highly doubtful that Obama supporters .. the tens of millions of them that will vote for him in a few weeks are undergoing any such moral dilemma and self-examination. They back him precisely BECAUSE of the evils he supports .. abortion .. same-sex marriage and so forth.

Until moral conservatives can back a candidate with the same conviction and eagerness ..

instead of this lackluster “hold your nose” approach, America will continue to disintegrate. It’s nothing else than a matter of speed, that’s all.

In order for the political order to change, the political process must change. When each party has become morally corrupt and only differ in degree, it’s time to hit the reset button.

GOD Love you,

I’m Michael Voris

Links:

• ChurchMilitantTV
• ChurchMilitantTV Facebook
• ChurchMilitantTV Youtube

Related:

• Catholic Priests Donate More Money to Obama or Romney?
• "President Obama to be honored guest at Al Smith Dinner"
• Romney says Ryan won't oppose abortion in rape cases: How does the GOP base accept that?
• Mitt Romney Told Catholic Hospitals to Administer Abortion Pills
• Mitt Romney's Planned Parenthood Questionnaire
• Mitt Romney: Jesus Will Reign in Missouri and Jerusalem  
• Mitt Romney Supports Homosexual Boy Scout Leaders, Homosexual Adoption
• Mitt Romney Punts on Chick-fil-A: "Not part of my campaign"
• Mitt Romney hires openly gay spokeman
• A choice between Satan and Beelzebub

"President Obama to be honored guest at Al Smith Dinner"

According to Catholics for Obama, President Obama will be an "honored guest" at the Alfred Smith Dinner.

"Catholic Right in Meltdown of Rage at Cardinal Dolan’s Invitation

Judie Brown, a right wing activist has demanded that Catholic Charities, known for freely feeding whoever comes to them, give “no dinner for Obama.” According to Judie, “Cardinal Dolan’s invitation to Obama is an outrage.” Others have called Cardinal Dolan “scandalous” and the Right-wing and sometimes racist “Catholic Culture” website fears this will help continue the strong support the President has among many Catholics.

The reaction is further evidence that too much of the Catholic Right is based on hate and extremism.

The Archdiocese of New York has ignored and belittled the critics."

h/t to Diane

Related:

• Bishop Rene Gracida: Michael Voris Pierces the Veil Surrounding the Invitation of Obama to the Al Smith Dinner
• Oh, Puhleeeze! - Michael Voris 
• Nancy Pelosi denied photo-op by Pope Benedict XVI
• Sign the Petition
• AONY Blog Response
• Al Smith Foundation Board of Directors
• Disinvite Obama
• Clear as MUD! (Obama Invited to Alfred Smith Dinner by Archdiocese of New York)

Pope: U.S. faces threats to religious freedom of ‘unprecedented gravity’

By Patrick B. Craine

ROME, Italy, August 7, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pope Benedict XVI is warning that the United States is facing threats of “unprecedented gravity” to religious freedom.

In a letter on behalf of the pope to Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone observed that “concerted efforts are being made to redefine and restrict the exercise of the right to religious freedom.”

The comments come as the U.S. bishops campaign for religious liberty in the face of attacks such as President Obama’s HHS mandate, which requires employers to cover contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs in their health insurance packages.

The bishops recently concluded their “fortnight for freedom” - two weeks of intensive “prayer, study, catechesis, and public action.” Shortly before launching the event, the bishops had reaffirmed their condemnation of the HHS mandate, nothing that the rule effectively punishes Catholic institutions for operating in the public sphere.

“Those deemed by HHS not to be ‘religious employers’ will be forced by government to violate their own teachings within their very own institutions. This is not only an injustice in itself, but it also undermines the effective proclamation of those teachings to the faithful and to the world,” they wrote.

Writing in advance of the Knights of Columbus’ annual Supreme Convention, which opened Tuesday in Anaheim, the prelate praised the Knights of Columbus for working “tirelessly to help the Catholic community recognize and respond to the unprecedented gravity of these new threats to the Church’s liberty and public moral witness.”

In his letter, Bertone quoted remarks by Pope Benedict in January in which he called on America’s bishops to “counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.”

Link:

• Pope: U.S. faces threats to religious freedom of ‘unprecedented gravity’

Nancy Pelosi Says Spirit of Susan B. Anthony Spoke to Her in White House

By Eric Scheiner

(CNSNews.com) House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) told a recent gathering of the Women’s Political Committee that the spirits of suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul spoke to her at the White House.

Pelosi said she heard them say: “At last we have a seat at the table...”

Pelosi says, “He’s (Bush) saying something to the effect of we’re so glad to welcome you here, congratulations and I know you’ll probably have some different things to say about what is going on--which is correct. But, as he was saying this, he was fading and this other thing was happening to me."

“My chair was getting crowded in," said Pelosi. "I swear this happened, never happened before, it never happened since.

"My chair was getting crowded in and I couldn’t figure out what it was, it was like this," she said.

"And then I realized Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, Sojourner Truth, you name it, they were all in that chair, they were," said Pelosi. "More than I named and I could hear them say: 'At last we have a seat at the table.' And then they were gone..."

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were activists in the women’s rights movement during the mid to late 1800’s. The Susan B. Anthony List, which works for pro-life women’s leadership in government, uses her as a namesake. The organization claims Anthony and Stanton were strong pro-life supporters.

Link:

• Pelosi 'Swears' Spirit of Susan B. Anthony Spoke to Her in White House

Related:

• Bishop Salvatore Cordileone Named Archbishop of San Francisco
• Catholic politicians who attack Church should remember God’s judgment
• Father John Zuhlsdorf and Canon Lawyer: Deny Communion to Pelosi
• Pelosi on contraception insurance mandate: I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this
• Nancy Pelosi: Free Will Trumps Catholic Church's Pro-Life Teachings on Abortion
• Pelosi: Catholic Faith "Compels" Me To Support Same-Sex Marriage
• Jim Jones’ sinister grip on San Francisco
• Archbishop Chaput responds to Pelosi-Pope meeting
  
• Pope lectures Pelosi on abortion stance
• Pope gives Pelosi pre-excommunication warning
• "More anti-baby talk from Speaker Pelosi (D-CA)"
• It’s official: Archbishop Niederauer has resigned

Clear as MUD! (Obama Invited to Alfred Smith Dinner by Archdiocese of New York)

From Michael Voris of ChurchMilitantTV:

Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

What’s the problem? What’s the problem with the various levels of leadership in the Church in the United States these days? Clearly something flat out stinks .. and those in charge look the other way.

The issue is this. While certain bishops tromp up and down the nation preaching and speeching about the desperate need for Catholic identity .. admitting the failures of the past in presenting the faith clearly .. at the end of the day .. THEY DON’T DO a blessed thing about it!

And more to the point .. they actually DO DO things that that send clear signals of mass confusion to the faithful. Need an example .. the annual Alfred Smith dinner in New York.

A fundraiser for the Church .. various politicians are invited for a night of lampooning.

Each presidential election year .. generally the major party candidates are invited as well.

Not every time .. but most.

So this year .. right in the middle of a lawsuit over OBAMAcare .. who does he sponsoring Archdiocese of New York invite other than the mastermind of Obamacare himself .. Obama.

Imagine the photo op that will make. Cardinal Dolan shaking hands with Obama .. each all smiles and happy faces. Wanna take a guess at the caption?

And talk about an awkward moment. What on earth do two bitter legal adversaries say to each other .. one proposing himself to be the defender of religious liberty and the other the destroyer of them.

“Hey Mr. President nice to see you again. Get ready for a beat down in court next week.”

What makes this photo op even more weird is that it happened because the Archdiocese of New York MADE it happen. It didn’t have to come close to being a reality.

Imagine .. 83 bishops protest Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame back in 2009. A massive internet protest petition is organized and hundreds of thousands of Catholic laity sign it.

They don’t want Obama being recognized because of his virulent culture of death political poison. AND THEN .. out of the blue .. he turns up at a Catholic fundraiser dinner at the invitation of the most recognized Cardinal in America.

JUST HOW EXACTLY is that picture that will be splashed across millions of headlines

and internet pages be interpreted by the tens of millions of people who see it?

The only logical way it could .. which is .. well .. this whole Obamacare birth control thing can’t possibly be THAT BAD a problem.

And when Obama stands up to make his jokes .. what exactly does he say to a room packed with people who disagree with him on child-killing .. what does he say .. “a funny thing happened on the way to Supreme Court today”?

There is a never ending stream of this “say one thing, do another” approach. It never ends. Bishops freely disregard canon law about giving holy Communion to pro-abort, pro-same sex marriage catholic politicians.

They allow dissdent nuns and university professors and homosexual clergy to run hog wild all over the faithful.

Their precious SO-CALLED social justice initiatives have been for decades little else than a thinly-veiled disguise for pushing every modernist progressive agenda that came across their desks .. all in the name of fighting poverty.

Now the latest dustup with the Catholic Relief Services scandal where 5 million dollars was given to CARE .. an international organization which promotes contraception. CRS quickly rolled out their hair-splitting argument that .. CARE also does nice things and the money is never used for bad things and we never do anything against Church teaching.

OH REALLY?????

Turns out .. yes they do .. and they do in SPADES. CRS is a dues paying member of a group called CORE which actively promotes and pushes family planning contraception programs all over the world. We’ve attached relevant links to the story.

You heard right! They just don’t pay dues to the group .. give Catholic money to it ..

officials of CRS ACTUALLY SIT ON THE BOARD OF THE GROUP.

As such .. they MORE than just sit on the board .. they actually OVERSEE programs supporting the culture of Death.

More than that .. they actually have INPUT in the programs .. thats right .. CATHOLIC Relief Services personnel .. sitting on the board of an outside group .. directing and delivering input into programs DIRECTLY opposed to Catholic Church teaching.

This type of rotten behavior has been going on for decades inside the Church in America .. from the top down and its revolting.

Remember that the Bishops Conference funded ACORN .. the community organizing group that was eventually busted up because by the feds .. but not before millions of Catholic dollars had been funneled to it .. again .. all under the name of fighting poverty.

And the song and dance press releases and speeches that come out in defense of this garbage .. with all their nuanced hair-splitting, double speak is even more revolting .. its down right disgusting.

It’s high time those in charge make a clear definitive statement one way or the other .. are you with the Church or are you not? And if you are .. it’s time to get a great big broom ..

the one you’ve been using against concerned faithful Catholic laity for years .. and clean out your liberal offices from their modernist progressive staffs.

And .. please spare us all the speeches and books and articles and interviews and the PR media blitz about how we have to reclaim Catholic identity and fight the anti-catholic forces in the world.

You got enough anti-Catholic forces in the Church.

GOD Love you,

I’m Michael Voris

Related:

• ChurchMilitantTV's Response to the USCCB's Catholic Relief Services Demand For a Retraction
• USCCB Catholic Relief Services Special Report Episode of the Vortex

ChurchMilitantTV's Response to the USCCB's Catholic Relief Services Demand For a Retraction

ChurchMilitantTV: "CRS demanded a retraction of our recent special report.

Well, here is our response to their demand."



Related:

• USCCB Catholic Relief Services Special Report Episode of the Vortex

Fr. Rutler: Post-Comfortable Christianity and the Election of 2012

By Father George Rutler

 

(Crisis Magazine) Shortly before he died in Oxford in 1988, the Jesuit retreat master and raconteur, Bernard Bassett, in good spirits after a double leg amputation, told me that the great lights of his theological formation had been Ignatius Loyola and John Henry Newman, but if he “had to do it all over,” he’d only read Paul.  “Everything is there.”  There is a temptation to think that God gave us the Apostle to the Gentiles in order to have second readings at Sunday Mass, usually unrelated to the first reading and the Gospel.  But everything truly is there.  Paul was one of the most important figures in human history, and a great character to boot.  That is, a character in the happiest sense of the word.  “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Cor 15:10).

Tragedy and comedy intertwine, ultimately issuing in glory, whenever he is on trial.  He longs to live and to die in the same breath: ”For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:210).  Whenever he is on trial for his life, he invokes a forensic brilliance to save the very life he is willing to sacrifice.  Just as Jesus who had come into the world to die, slipped through the mob in Nazareth because his hour had not yet come, so does Paul become his own defense when on trial, ready to die by God’s calendar and not man’s.

In Caesarea, he confounds Antonius Felix, the Roman governor of Judaea and Samaria, and a little later he does the same  to the successor of Felix, Procius Festus.   The best court scene is Paul before Marcus Annaeus Novatus, who had taken the name of his adoptive father Junius Gallio, the rhetorician and friend of his father Seneca Sr. whose son Seneca, Jr. was the noble Stoic.  Nero forced Seneca’s suicide, but before that, in Achaia where Gallio was proconsul, Paul was bit of a Rumpole of the Bailey, in how he played the jury like a piano to the frustration of the judge.  The point is this:  Paul, both innocent and shrewd, was willing to suffer and did so regularly, as he was not loathe to recount at length, and he was also ready to die, but as death comes but once, he wanted it to be at the right moment.

There is in Paul a model for Catholics at the start of the Third Millennium which began with fireworks and Ferris wheels but is now entering a sinister stage.  Like Paul, it is not possible to be a Christian without living for Christ by suffering for him, nor is it possible to be a Christian without willing to die for him when he wants.   The Christian veneer of  American culture has cracked and underneath is the inverse of the blithe Christianity that took shape in the various enthusiasms of the nineteenth century and ended when voters were under the impression that they finally had a Catholic president.

This new period is not “Post-Christian” because nothing comes after Christ.   We can, however, call it “Post-Comfortable Christian...”  (continued)

Read More at Crisis Magazine (click here)

Link:

• Post-Comfortable Christianity and the Election of 2012

Father Gordon MacRae: Honoring Father Norman Weslin as Light Finally Dawns Upon Notre Dame

By Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

Five days after Fr. Norman Weslin’s death, the University of Notre Dame joined 42 Catholic groups in religious liberty lawsuits against the Obama Administration.

Father Norman Weslin left this life behind on May 16th.  He will not be easily forgotten. He did something that many on the outer fringes of leftist religion in America wish he had done three years ago. He went quietly, something that he was not at all accustomed to doing in this life. I am proud to say that Father Norman Weslin is forever present on These Stone Walls in an image that I cannot erase from my mind’s eye of late. The image is an enduring Catholic scandal.



One of my TSW posts, “The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Civil Rights and the Right to Life,” featured a haunting and now famous image of the nearly 80-year-old Father Weslin being arrested for a pro-life protest on the campus of a  major American Catholic University in 2009.  Juxtaposed next to that haunting image is a photo taken simultaneously of a triumphant President Barack Obama bestowed with an honorary degree by the president of the University of Notre Dame after delivering the Catholic school’s 2009 Commencement Address.

That photo of the elderly Father Weslin on the ground being arrested for his protest is a monument to the greatness of this quiet priest. The image says everything that needs to be said, for Father Norman Weslin, above all, departed faithfully, having served his Lord, his Church and his faith with the last full measure of devotion. Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, about whom I wrote in “The Duty of a Priest,” wrote of Father Weslin’s death that “our loss is Heaven’s gain.”

He wrote that Father Norman Weslin believed “that a priest’s place was not behind his people, lending encouragement, but out in front, leading the way.” As a result, Father Weslin spent many days and nights in jail, as did John the Baptist and the Apostles. That scene at Notre Dame three years ago will prove itself to be a proud and defining moment for the Catholic Church in America. As one writer put it succinctly at the Voices Carry blog:

“While the millstone of Notre Dame is placed around [our President's] neck and 12,000 at Notre Dame stand giving a thunderous ovation, all Heaven stood to honor an 80-year old priest as he received Heaven’s high honor for peacefully taking a stand for life and the plight of the unborn . . . That little jail around the neck of this bound man of God is a high honor in the kingdom of God...”

Click Here to Read More at These Stone Walls 

Link:

• Honoring Father Norman Weslin as Light Finally Dawns Upon Notre Dame

The Bishops are Being Played. Like Cheap Fiddles.

By Ann Barnhardt

I do not understand how it is that this isn't glaringly, beat-you-over-the-head obvious, but whatever. I'll explain it. Listen up. Especially if you have a hat shaped like the blade of a posthole digger in your wardrobe, and people actually call you "Excellency."

Withdrawing health insurance (like Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio), shutting down schools, closing adoption agencies, soup kitchens or ANYTHING ELSE in "protest" of ObamaCare and the HHS "mandates" is EXACTLY, PRECISELY, TOTALLY and COMPLETELY what the Obama regime wants.

Further, the reason why the "press" has OBVIOUSLY been given the order to keep all of this quiet and to not report in any way on the lawsuits filed by the dozens of various Catholic organizations this week against the Obama regime - the largest religious legal action ever taken against the U.S. government by a long shot - is obvious.

The Obama regime is sitting back and watching all of you cowardly fools fold your own tents. None of the stupid bread-and-circus addicted crowd knows anything about any of this. You have to break out of your narcissistic little world and understand that even though these things are earth-shattering to you, uh, most people in this country don't even know that their "government" has declared war on the Church.

So, in a few months, after you all have played right into their hands and shut down your facilities, hospitals, schools and services, congratulating yourselves on your "brave protest", the Obama regime is going to make a ginormous propaganda offensive telling all of the stupid TV-addled idiots that the Catholic Church doesn't give a crap about "the people" because they have shut down their hospitals, schools, their soup kitchens, their adoption agencies and won't even provide health insurance plans to the poor, poor youths attending their universities. The Catholic Church hates "the people", hates charity, hates sick people, hates women, hates children, hates poor people and is hoarding all of its money.

Oh, but the Obama regime LOVES you. The Obama regime will provide you and anyone else who joins their Free Shit Army with all of the "free healthcare", "free education", "free food" and free unicorn farts they could ever want or need.

Listen, you fools. YOU DON'T SHUT ANYTHING DOWN. You keep going exactly as you have been, and you force those dirty rotten SOBs to literally storm your hospitals and shut YOU down at gunpoint. And I'm not kidding. Make them physically shut down your hospital by dragging you out at gunpoint. Make them physically shut down your schools. Make them shut down your university by force because you won't cover abortions in your student health plan. Make them physically shut down your soup kitchens. Make them shut down your adoption agencies because you won't hand a baby boy over to two men who like to jam various and sundry body parts up each others' rectums.

In other words, STAND AND FIGHT.

The only proper course of action is total non-compliance with these totalitarian edicts of the regime, and FORCING THEIR HAND.

Anything less than that, and you LOSE. MEN fight wars. If you refuse to do your duty and act like MEN, then the war is already lost. And make no mistake, cowardice is a grave sin, and you will answer for it.

Every bishop is given a crosier upon his ordination to the episcopacy. A crosier is a shepherd's staff. It is a six to seven foot long staff that a shepherd uses to beat the crap out of wolves. That's your job. Beating the crap out of the wolves - not killing all of the sheep yourself so that there is nothing left for the wolves to eat.
MAN UP!!!! FIGHT, YOU FOOLS!!!

Link:

• The Bishops are Being Played. Like Cheap Fiddles.

Related:

• Franciscan University of Steubenville to Drop Student Health Insurance
• Buzzsaw Raised to the Power of Blowtorch

Mitt Romney To Travel Back In Time To Kill Liberal Versions Of Himself

Cardinal Burke: Yes, it’s a sin to comply with the Obamacare mandate

AP Photo

By Tina Korbe

(Hot Air) In the clearest statement of what’s at stake for Catholic employers when it comes to the Obamacare contraception mandate, a leading Catholic cardinal recently said that it is, in fact, a sin for employers to comply with the mandate.

Cardinal Raymond Burke told EWTN’s Thomas McKenna that Catholic employers would not only be guilty of material cooperation with sin, but also formal cooperation because they would knowingly and deliberately be providing employees with contraception:

Thomas McKenna: “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin … the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”

Cardinal Burke: “This is correct. It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”

Responding to the comments, [former executive director of HLI America Jenn] Giroux says, “This comment by a high ranking Cardinal is the clearest explanation to date on the issue of an employer’s culpability when providing contraception, sterilization, and abortion inducing drug options in the insurance plans for employees.”

It’s easy to see that this statement might come as a surprise even to the most faithful of Catholics, who are taught that an individual must freely consent to sin to bear full responsibility for it. Under the mandate, do employers really have the freedom not to consent? Cardinal Burke is telling them that, yes, they do. They have the freedom, for example, to get out of whatever business it is they’re running. They have the freedom to not have employees. They have the freedom to ignore the mandate and suffer the legal consequences. Burke’s comments are a hard call to faithfulness to all those Catholic employers who have been outraged by the mandate but might have been tempted to justify their ultimate compliance with it with that perennial of excuses: “I had no choice.” The seriousness of Burke’s words are also a warning to the Obama administration: He is saying that Catholic employers should go out of business before they comply with the mandate. Just as opponents have said from the very beginning, the mandate does, in fact, endanger the very existence of Catholic hospitals, schools and other charitable organizations. The president had better think long and hard about whether contraception coverage is more important to him than broader health care, education and help for the poor.

• Catholic Cardinal: Yes, it’s a sin to comply with the Obamacare mandate
• Catholic Cardinal: A Sin to Cooperate With Obama Mandate

Related:

• Moving Beyond
• Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke
• The Scandal That is Eating the Heart out of the Catholic Church in America
• Cardinal Raymond Burke: Obama’s Policies ‘Have Become Progressively More Hostile Toward Christian Civilization’

Catholic Missionary Suing Government Willing to Risk Health Over HHS Mandate

From in caritate non ficta:

Please pray for my dear friend, Stacy Molai, who is suing the HHS over the current mandate. Article from PR Newswire:

DENVER, March 6, 2012. A missionary with FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, is one of two private citizens who has joined states, senators and others in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' mandate that nearly all health insurance plans cover contraceptives free of charge, says she would give up her critically important health insurance if the mandate is not overturned.

Stacy Molai, of Omaha, Neb., suffers from Crohn's disease and says her health insurance coverage is critical in order to avoid financial ruin and possibly life-threatening consequences. Medical supplies for her condition cost up to $400 every month.

Molai, 31, raises her own salary as a lay Catholic missionary and says that, "Should the mandate be upheld, I would gladly give up my insurance coverage, despite the very real risk that would pose to my financial well-being and my health."

"The government mandate violates my constitutional guarantee of the Freedom of Association," Molai added. "I'm no longer free to associate with another Catholic employer without grave risks in abandoning a grandfathered insurance policy. I have had four surgeries and countless hospitalizations because of my Crohn's disease."

"But my relationship with Jesus Christ is at the core of who I am, and the government mandate violates my unalienable rights by interfering with that sacred relationship. I'm no longer free to follow the dictates of my conscience and the teaching of my Church without great financial and health risks. That's not freedom."

Jeremy Rivera, director of communications at FOCUS, stated that, "FOCUS is proud to have a woman like Stacy among our missionary staff. As her employer, we stand in solidarity with her and her convictions to remain true to her conscience and to exercise her religious liberty in the face of the government's proposed HHS mandate. Given the reality of Stacy's serious health issues, her courage should inspire all Catholics and people of faith to reinforce the necessity to overturn this unjust law."

At the March for Life with Stacy in 2010:

• Link

Atheists Step Up 'It's Time to Quit the Catholic Church' Campaign

FFRF Plans to Run Full Page Ad to Fight Catholics' 'War Against Contraception'

By Alex Murashko , Christian Post Reporter

(The Christian Post) An atheist activist group is fighting the Catholic Church's "war against contraception" by stepping up its campaign that suggests believers should end their faithfulness to their religion.

The Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation plans to run a full-page ad in The New York Times that states, "It's Time to Quit the Catholic Church." FFRF is conducting a fundraiser to pay for the $52,000 ad and has collected $45,000 so far, according to a chart on the group's website.

The FFRF campaign began last month in light of opposition from the Catholic Church to the Obama administration's decision that seeks to guarantee employees of church and ministry-affiliated institutions reproductive health coverage, including contraception, abortifacients and sterilization.

"Dear 'Liberal' Catholic," an open letter written by the group's co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, begins. "It's time to quit the Roman Catholic Church. It's your moment of truth. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs? Whose side are you on, anyway?"

Gaylor called the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops' opposition to mandatory free contraception to employees of religious organizations a "ruthless campaign endangering the right to contraception."

"If you're part of the Catholic Church, you're part of the problem," she continued. "Why are you propping up the pillars of a tyrannical and autocratic, woman-hating, sex-perverting, antediluvian Old Boys Club? Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly and publicly announced a crusade to ban contraception, abortion and sterilization, and to deny the right of all women everywhere, Catholic or not, to decide whether and when to become mothers? When it comes to reproductive freedom, the Roman Catholic Church is Public Enemy Number One."

Last Thursday, the Senate rejected by a 51-48 vote a bill that would have permitted religious employers to refuse to cover medical services that violated their moral and religious convictions.

A Catholic political action group is targeting the 13 Democratic senators who supported the contraception mandate and is making plans to defeat those who are up for reelection in November.

"Faithful Catholics should take the opportunity to thank those Senators supporting our religious liberties," said Matt Smith, president of the Catholic Advocate, a group that encourages Catholics to be active in the political process. "It is our duty as laity to hold those who did not support our values accountable and vote our conscience when the time comes."

Evangelical columnist Chuck Colson recently argued that the way the issue of free contraception through health care has played out among its supporters is deceitful and "downright shameful."

"They say this is all about protecting women's access to contraception. This is, folks, the biggest red herring I've seen in politics. It's garbage, and they know it," Colson said. "Shame on them. Nobody is saying they shouldn't have access to contraceptives. Any woman can go to virtually any drug store and purchase them. Even drugs that induce abortion. As I told you last week, these things are even available in vending machines now!"

The scathing letter against Catholics by Gaylor included a paragraph that reads: "You're better than your church. So why? Why continue to attend Mass? Tithe? Why dutifully sacrifice to send your children to parochial schools so they can be brainwashed into the next generation of myrmidons (and, potentially, become the next Church victims)?"

Gaylor continued, "It is disgraceful that U.S. health care reform is being held hostage to the Catholic Church's bizarre opposition to medically prescribed contraception. No politician should jeopardize electability for failure to genuflect before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops."

However, Colson wrote that the national debate is not really about contraception.

"Folks, women's access to contraception is not the issue here. They have it. In spades. What's really going on is that the Obama Administration wants women to have access to FREE contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. It's an ideological imperative for them. And such niceties as the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom just don't matter in comparison," Colson stated.

"Make no mistake: What we are witnessing is indeed the leading edge of tyranny," Colson concluded.

• Link

Dingy Reid Slams “Extreme Ideological” Amendment Allowing Catholic Groups To Opt Out of Contraception Mandate…

From Weasel Zippers:

Allowing people to exercise their First Amendment rights is “extreme” in the left’s eyes.

Via The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) set the stage for a tense vote the Senate will hold on Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R-Mo.) contraception amendment Thursday morning, claiming it was yet another instance of the Senate being hijacked by the far right.

“Today the Senate will vote on a extreme ideological amendment to the transportation bill,” said Reid. “[T]his amendment has no place on a transportation bill.”

The amendment would reverse the Obama administration’s ruling that health plans must offer contraception coverage, even those offered by church-related organizations. A vote on the amendment should begin just after 11 a.m. on Thursday.

Related:

• TRENDING: Romney stumbles over question about GOP contraception push
• Mitt Romney Told Catholic Hospitals to Administer Abortion Pills
• Fact-Check: Did Romney Lie About Cardinal and Contraception During Wednesday Debate?
• Fact-Check Followup: Regulations Prove Romney Wrong, Show Consequences of Emergency Contraception Decision